As a Report for America Corps Member, their writing centers civic life, solutions, and holding public officials accountable to their communities with a focus on Chicago’s South and West Sides.

By Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel

Since joining City Bureau in July 2025, Sophia has become a pivotal member of our Editorial Team as our Report for America Corps Member and Community Accountability Reporter.

Originally from Metro Detroit, Sophia has reported for newsrooms across their home state, including Bridge Michigan, Michigan Public, and most recently MLive. Her reporting has covered issues ranging from housing insecurity and environmental injustice to civil rights abuse in higher education. At City Bureau, Sophia leads a beat dedicated to civic happenings, solutions, and holding public officials accountable, particularly on Chicago’s South and West Sides. Through reporting spanning lead pipes and alderperson stances on ICE, their writing helps make complex civic issues more accessible and grounded in people’s lived experiences.

We asked Sophia to share more about their background, their path into journalism, and what they’re bringing to the role. Here are some of the highlights, edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your path from your hometown of Metro Detroit to Chicago.

I’m originally from Farmington, Michigan, which is part of Metro Detroit about ten or twenty minutes outside of the city. After I graduated, I was working at MLive covering the Ypsilanti area, just outside of Ann Arbor. I covered local politics, environmental injustice, and housing. I visited Chicago a lot growing up and throughout college, whether it was for school trips or visiting friends. I loved the city and always thought I might move here one day.

What did your experience in journalism look like as a student?

In undergrad, Eastern Michigan University had a really small newspaper, and I ended up serving as the news editor. We didn’t have much staff, so it was sometimes a lot of responsibility, especially for a freshman in college. When I transferred to Michigan State University my sophomore year, The State News was a lot bigger and more competitive. It’s an independent nonprofit with a more structured, fast-paced environment. That’s where I developed an interest in audience engagement and started running the newspaper’s social media.

I later became city desk editor, where I oversaw reporters covering state and local government, public safety, and public health during the height of the pandemic. I also took on coverage related to civil rights and Title IX and led an investigation into the university’s handling of sexual misconduct. I gained a lot of experience across a bunch of different beats in a short amount of time.

Is there a certain beat you’ve remained committed to despite your breadth of coverage?

The environment prevails in my journalism, even as I continue to cover issues spanning city government and immigration.

No matter what beat I'm doing, climate often plays a role. Even though I didn't end up pursuing a job as an environmental journalist, it remains a priority in my work in unexpected ways. For example, I wrote a series of stories about majority-Black and low-income neighborhoods repeatedly affected by flooding. It was both an issue of aging and underinvested infrastructure as well as worsening storms driven by climate change.

Housing was a major focus of my reporting at MLive. I covered efforts to establish a permanent emergency shelter in Ypsilanti, a large apartment complex condemned due to neglect by the property managers, and the influx of housing development in the area.

I find that I’m drawn not only to a breadth of beats, but also to all the different ways the stories can be presented. I’ve spent time working on a documentary film and in public radio. I’m very interested in how multimedia storytelling can make reporting more accessible to a wider range of audiences.

What drew you to City Bureau?

When I was working at a daily newspaper, I loved the community that I was involved with. I had a strong connection to the place and people there. But I was also getting very burnt out on the daily journalism grind. I was writing two or three articles a day. I’d always imagined starting in daily journalism and eventually transitioning to a place where I could focus on more in-depth, long-form stories.

I learned that City Bureau offered those kinds of opportunities and the team here is very interested in community engagement. We’re writing for communities, rather than about them.

What’s unique about my role is the accountability component. Accountability can be a vague word unless we ask: accountable to whom? Whether the issues are between tenants and landlords or a government official and constituents, at City Bureau there’s room for my reporting to include the perspectives of the people who are most impacted.

How do you approach your work?

I'm a big believer in being honest about who I am. The people journalists are interviewing or building source relationships with are often in a really vulnerable position. I think sometimes in journalism, we tend to just focus on doing our job and sort of cut off a lot of our personal life from sources. Work-life balance matters, of course. But in the reporting process, people are pouring out some of their most personal and vulnerable stories to you. Honesty for me looks like being a human first and a journalist second.

My approach is also shaped by having been on the other side of coverage. After a mass shooting took place at my university during my senior year, I was disillusioned by how the press treated our community. Especially when it came to national news organizations, I felt like they were there more for the spectacle than for concern over the survivors and victims, myself included.

That experience stays with me. When I’m working on a story, I’m always asking myself who it’s for and if it’s empowering people and providing actual solutions. I try to let the community guide the reporting rather than going in too attached to any specific angle. I was drawn to City Bureau because of how much it values this kind of community-engaged, solutions-driven journalism.

To connect with Sophia, feel free to reach out at sophia@citybureau.org. And, check out their multimedia reporting on Instagram.

Meet Sophia, City Bureau’s Community Accountability Reporter